Sunderland extended their unbeaten run to 10 games but, as the smattering of gentle boos that greeted the final whistle testified, it was most certainly not a cause for celebration on Wearside.
Instead a fifth successive draw against highly efficient, if somewhat unambitious, opponents well practised at pinching ostensibly unlikely points led to Régis Le Bris’s early pacesetters slipping to third in the Championship. West Brom’s reward for the obduracy that so frustrated mildly disgruntled Stadium of Light season ticket holders was a drop to seventh in an increasingly fascinating second tier.
